In a world at war, a slave girl’s lethal curse could become one kingdom’s weapon of salvation. If the curse – and the girl – can be controlled.

As a slave in the war-weary kingdom of Faelen, seventeen-year-old Nym isn’t merely devoid of rights, her Elemental kind are only born male and always killed at birth – meaning, she shouldn’t even exist.

Standing on the auction block beneath smoke-drenched mountains, Nym faces her fifteenth sell. But when her hood is removed and her storm-summoning killing curse revealed, Nym is snatched up by a court advisor and given a choice: be trained as the weapon Faelen needs to win the war, or be killed.

Choosing the former, Nym is unleashed into a world of politics, bizarre parties, and rumors of an evil more sinister than she’s being prepared to fight . . . not to mention the handsome trainer whose dark secrets lie behind a mysterious ability to calm every lightning strike she summons.

But what if she doesn’t want to be the weapon they’ve all been waiting for?

Set in a beautifully eclectic world of suspicion, super abilities, and monsters, Storm Siren is a story of power. And whoever controls that power will win.

Review:

Well what an interesting journey you are taken on throughout this book. Fantasy world come to life with very cool Elemental and Uathuils. Nyms whole ‘being able to control Mother Nature’ is pretty awesome. I do like that there is a map at the beginning of the book to give you a visual understanding to where all the territories are in relation to each other. Also goes down as another off my 2015 Reading Challenge – A popular author’s first book.

So the story starts with Nym being sold at an auction – at the age of seventeen this will be her fifteenth sale into slavery. Each of her past owners has wanted to give her back for one reason and one reason only – she is cursed – and eventually, accidentally, something bad will happen to whoever owns her. Her gift, or curse as she sees it to begin with, is uncontrolled and untrained. Her emotions are her trigger and until she learns how to embrace them she will always be a constant danger to those around her. This point is made at the auction when one of the buyers provokes a reaction out of her and ends up getting fried with lighting. It’s at this market sale that Nym is sold to Adora after displaying her gift. To say Adora is a little strange would be putting it mildly; lets just say she marches to her own drum and I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.

Nym is an Elemental and a very rare one at that, as Elementals are supposed to be born male. But more importantly she is alive which is unheard of as once born they are meant to be killed due to an hundred year old law. Her power is off the scales but she has no idea how to control it and she end ups letting it control her. It’s this power that Adora wishes to harness to win the war. So she gives Nym two choices: she can either be charged with the murder of the man at the market, along with being an Elemental, or she can be trained to control her gift and be used as Faelens greatest weapon (although she does keep correcting herself by saying defence when she sees how Nym reacts to being called a weapon). All Nym has ever wanted is to be able to control what’s inside her and even though she doesn’t think it can be done she is willing to give it a try.

It’s when her training starts that she meets Colin, a Terrene who can move the earth around him and their trainer Eogan who seems to be able to block, or in Nyms case calm, other Uathuils gifts. To be able to get Nym to calm down enough to focus on her gift he has to be touching her – not that she minds. From the moment she meets him she is drawn in by his mysterious nature. You can see why she would slowly fall for him but with him constantly going hot and cold with how he reacts around her she can never quite figure out how he feels about her. With the threat from Bron’s attack drawing ever closer the training becomes more intense as Eogan tries to get them battle ready. They are Faelens last hope of survival but with ulterior motives coming to the surface, danger lurking around every bend and secrets just waiting to be revealed it will take all they’ve got to get them ready for the battle that’s coming. To be able to save a world that even Nyms not sure is actually worth saving.

The counting Nym does can get a bit annoying at times but that’s just how her mind works. A very in-depth story with creating the fantasy world that they all live in but I felt at times like it needed to be explained a bit more. It was almost like in places you were already meant to know everything about the world you were reading about. Also with it being a long book you might have hoped that some of the other reoccurring characters, like Breck, Princess Rasha and even Colin to some extent, would have had a bit more development or back-story told about who they are. But then I guess a theme I’d noticed throughout would be that it’s not the past that defines you but the present, and the hope for a better future. I did like the dreams Nym has throughout that interlink different scenes – showing her past and possible future. The story ends with one hell of a battle scene, so much happens in it – self-sacrificing, back stabbing, air ships, ghosts of past coming back to haunt the present and you also get to see what Nym and Colin are really capable of doing with their gifts. The final end twist can be seen a mile off but even while reading you are hoping that you are wrong. It just leads you right into wanting to know what happens next. Bring on Siren’s Fury and show us what Nyms going to do next.